“Obama did not grow up in poverty,” he said. “His grandmother, the typical white woman, worked in a bank. Don’t give me this ‘down with the struggle’ business. He wasn’t down. In 2008, the Democrats were wringing their hands because he wasn’t authentically black… He wasn’t down with the struggle. He doesn’t have slave blood.”

Limbaugh’s claim that Obama never struggled also wilts under scrutiny. Even the neoconservative-leaning Weekly Standard pointed out that right after graduating Harvard Law, Obama took a $12,000-a-year salary as a community organizer in Chicago instead of a six-figure salary at one of the nation’s most prestigious law firms — a figure that comes to just over $23,000 once adjusted for inflation, which is less than what most public school teachers make. As Michelle Obama explained Tuesday night, during those years their student loan bills “were actually higher than our mortgage.”

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About the Author

Stephen C. Webster is the senior editor of Raw Story, and is based out of Austin, Texas. He previously worked as the associate editor of The Lone Star Iconoclast in Crawford, Texas, where he covered state politics and the peace movement’s resurgence at the start of the Iraq war. Webster has also contributed to publications such as True/Slant, Austin Monthly, The Dallas Business Journal, The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Weekly, The News Connection and others. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenCWebster.